TweakTown News Posts - Page 2285

Quad-core smartphones are all the rage these days, but not so much last year - or so you may have thought. Market research firm Berg Insight, have said that 40 million smartphones featuring quad-core processors shipped last year.

The firm believes that companies have found the sweet spot in terms of specs, where they think the majority of the 1.5 billion smartphones expected to be sold in 2017 will feature quad-core processors, leaving eight-core processors in the sidelines. I don't know about that, but I think we'll see much more efficient processors - that's for sure.

BlackBerry 10 was supposed to be the start of something truly great from BlackBerry, but it looks like the new OS isn't doing so well in the United States. BB10-based devices haven't been selling well in the US, but have been selling strong in other countries.

Barron's point to some research from RBC Capital analyst, Mark Sue, who has said that BlackBerry 10 demand "appears to be mixed by region" with "Canada, the U.K. and the Middle East... seeing the strongest BB10 sell-through." Sue has noted that in the United States though, "BlackBerry has a diminished consumer presence" and are "seeing slower sell-through."

I wrote my love letter about Man of Steel in a review for TweakTown, and in my original draft I did ask about the damage of the city - and just the insurance companies would be scratching their heads at claims of an "alien attacked my apartment and it's now gone, there's no evidence", etc.

Well, BuzzFeed has worked with disaster experts Watson Technical Consulting to estimate the amount of damage that was done to Metropolis during Man of Steel's absolutely mind-blowing action set pieces would've really cost. They ran simulations on Manhattan and Chicago which gave them an idea of what the cost would've been. The WTC estimates that around 129,000 people would've been killed, over 250,000 left missing and over one million people injured in total.

As for the cost of the God vs. God fight between Superman and General Zod - which left me with goosebumps - we're looking at physical damage of around $700 billion (or $700,000,000,000). Compared to 9/11 which was $55 billion in damages. The WTC estimates that the entire economic impact of the two Kryptonian's to sit at around $2 trillion.

It looks like I've been right that LG are the ones to watch coming into this year and especially 2014, with the South Korean company reportedly preparing an always-on, voice-controlled, buttonless smartphone for 2014.

The new smartphone would feature technology that would respond to only the owner's voice, and would just require a simple "hello" to begin processing voice input. The issue is going to be separation of noise, such as general conversation, road noise, and more from actual voice commands to the phone. The other issue is battery power and heat, as the phone would be in some form of "always-on mode" in order to be constantly listening for you to say "hello".

According to GottaMeMobile's sources, LG's always-on technology won't be as lavish as Google's or Apple's, but they've focused on a single context: navigation. With the user not having to touch or press the phone, they can pan and zoom in Google Maps just by their voice. LG's new buttonless, always-on, voice-controlled smartphone would be powered by Qualcomm's benchmark-breaking Snapdragon 800 SoC, which can supposedly deliver the always-on goodness LG needs without serious drains on the battery.

ASRock and their right-hand man, Nick Shih, has reached the crazy heights of 6.95GHz on Intel's Core i7 4770K CPU using ASRock's Z87M OC Formula motherboard. He reached an exact clock speed of 6947.57MHz, which has slammed him into top position at HWBOT, again.

ASRock's Z87M OC Formula is a seriously slick piece of kit, and I can't wait to get a 4770K and one of these bad boys into my labs for some multi-GPU, multi-monitor testing. Nick, keep up the good work!!

During a testimony before a congressional intelligence committee on Tuesday, the head of the National Security Agency (NSA) and over government officials strongly defended the government's not-so-secret surveillance program, noting that the NSA has "been able to connect the dots and prevent another terrorist attack."

Director of the NSA, General Keith Alexander, told the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that the NSA's gigantic telecommunications surveillance program has helped to stop a "little over 10" plots with a "domestic nexus" and a total of 50 such plots in more than 20 countries over the last couple of years thanks to PRISM. The head of the NSA reiterated that under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, the NSA has authority to access all telephony metadata.

This metadata is pretty much everything in regards to the call, the who, when and where of every call across the United States. John Chris Inglis, NSA's deputy director has said that there is a purge of data every five years - you know, because we can prove that and all.

LG have seen success in their home country of South Korea with their Optimus G Pro smartphone which has surpassed one million sales. LG have said that this is the fastest they have ever reached one million sales for a single device in their own country.

The milestone took just four months to reach, with average daily sales of around 8,000. LG have said that it beats the previous record holder which was the Optimus LTE in Korea, which took seven months to reach one million sales. LG credits the milestone to the Optimus G Pro's large HD display, UX improvements and LTE capabilities.

It looks like NVIDIA is taking a different, and great new path with their business - where they'll shift from simply making their own GPU's and SoC's to licensing their technology to other manufacturers.

NVIDIA will begin by offering their Kepler GPU architecture, which the company state is the world's most advanced and efficient GPU, and the reference design for their next-generation Tegra mobile processors. Licensees of NVIDIA's technology will receive designs, collateral and support to integrate Kepler into their devices. NVIDIA will also license their vast visual computing portfolio, which will open up to licensees the intellectual property necessary to make their own GPU's.

The company have had trouble getting into the mainstream with their Tegra processors, as good as they are, it's still not mainstream. This new path could lead to a much better future for NVIDIA, as OEM's will most likely just dive onto this plan versus spending buckets of money on their own internal R&D.

Engadget have had some hands-on experience with Qualcomm's new MDP devices, which are powered by the company's Snapdragon 800 SoC (MSM8974). The tablet the site used is an 11.6-inch device featuring a 1920x1080-pixel display.

Also inside, we find 2GB of LPDDR3 RAM, 32GB of built-in flash storage with microSD expansion capabilities, a 12-megapixel auto-focus rear-facing camera and a 2-megapixel camera up front. The device itself is quite thin, measuring in at just 0.46 inches thick (11.7mm) and has a 3400mAh Li-ion battery crammed inside. Connectivity wise, you're covered with LTE, Wi-Fi ac, Bluetooth 4 LE, GPS and NFC. Pressure and humidity sensors also make an appearance.

The phone side of things features a 4.3-inch 720p display with a 1500mAh battery. Engadget chucked the Snapdragon 800 SoC into the benchmarking ring, and found some truly ridiculous results. In just a few tests, it truly blows the competition away - completely. Things like AnTuTu 3.x score 13,836 on the current Snapdragon S4 Pro, compared to a whopping 33,828 with the Snapdragon 800 doing the work.

Naughty Dog's new IP, The Last of Us, is doing very well in its first week on sale. The game has sold 1.3 million copies in the first week of its release, making it the biggest launch of the year. BioShock Infinite sold 1.16 million units across two platforms - the PS3 and Xbox 360.

This means The Last of Us has sold over 200,000 more copies and considering it's a PS3 exclusive - that is some good business for Sony. The Last of Us has sold around 500,000 copies in the US, which represents a near 50% increase over the 338,000 pre-orders. In the UK, the game is selling well, with around 120,000 units shifted so far.